The least glamorous of all the 'public-eye' jobs the railway has to offer have to be those in the catering department, where the railway is more or less insignificant in normal operations. Buffet stewarding on the trains is, however, catering learned the hard way!
The day starts about half an hour before the train is due to leave,
the stewards make their way to Port in their smart maroon uniforms etc
and prepare for the day ahead. There are usually two stewards although
in high summer many trains benefit from three people being on board,
whereas the quieter trains may only have one. If they are fortunate, the
buffet car they will be working on will be in Port, allowing them to
open up all the locks, check that the train is menued, and bring on any
stock needed to ensure that nothing runs out. The float is locked in the
till, so that both stewards have access to the money but it is still
secure. When the set is shunted into the platform they can bring on the
three trays of alcoholic drinks and just before the train leaves two canisters of
freshly boiled water. This can be a hectic process if the set has been
at the Lodge and only arrives in Port a few minutes before it is due to
leave!
Once the journey has commenced, Guide Book Sales are the first challenge, whereby one steward gets to go into every carriage and make him/herself look really daft by extolling the virtues of these marvellous items. Practise allows the speeches to be perfected and developed over time, each steward with their own little phrases which get used over and over agin for customers who've never heard it before. Onec one person buys a guide, others will, so finding that all-important first sale is the key!
After guidebooks have been offered to the whole train, the crew will then set about taking orders for food and drink, the real catering part of the job. Writing down orders on a notepad, the stewards work through the train, each knowing who is doing which carriages so that there is no confusion. The orders are taken and then the *real* challenge starts - delivering the orders from a tray!
Back in the buffet car the prices are added up, and the orders made up ready for delivery. Everyone stacks trays differently, depending on how they want to do it. I prefer to stack heaviest items like cans of lager at the closest end to me, so they have some support should they threaten to fall over. Then I have the hot drinks, then the cans of pop, with snacks wedged in the space around the front. That way I focus the weight above my arm, and I always carefully position orders so that the first to go are around the edges, that way the stuff I have to carry for longest isn't being carried around the edges of the tray when the middle is empty. This probably doesn't really help, but it makes me feel more confident! Trays can carry an awful lot of stock, piled high they can look impressive but also be painfully heavy. It can be a good confidence boost to take a large tray in order to get finished quicker, as long as you don't drop it halfway! Dropping a tray is the worst nightmare - publicly humiliating, wasting stock, and battering for your self confidence!
Before leaving the buffet car the tray must have a cup containing many sugar sachets, straws and stirrers, and enough change to cover all the orders. The cups of tea and coffee must also have milk cartons placed with them, and it is also advisable to have the order list placed somewhere visible so you know where you're headed and what they want!
When the orders have been served, the stewards may have time to tackle the 'lock-ups' at Tan-y-Bwlch. These older carriages have no corridor connections so the passengers don't get the normal buffet service, but as an up train at T-y-B has time waiting for the down to arrive, the stewards can leap out and run along the platform with a tray made of of drinks and snacks in the hope of vending them to the people up there. (If the crew have been really keen they may have had the chance to sell guide book to these people at Port!). When the down train is heard to be arriving they rush back onto the corridor part of the train and assess the takings, which vary from brilliant to poor (ie selling everything or nothing) with several stages inbetween!
The crew can then relax until Tan-y-Grisiau, where they set off along the train to collect rubbish in, clean tables and re-menu them before the train gets to Blaenau.
At Blaenau it can be really quiet or really busy. Sometimes there may still be rubbish to collect, or stock to be delivered to the on-platform kiosk the 'Bunny Hutch', and there are always the drinks to prepare for the loco crew, who will place an order as they drive past on the runround loop! Blaenau can either be relaxing, or hectic, made worse of course if the train is late. And after all that panic to 'get off the top' on time, there's the joy of doing guidebooks and then orders again!
The way down is a little more relaxed, as people recognise you from the way up (which is a good reason for having several different branches to your guidebook speech!), and the end is in sight. There are no lockups to worry about as there isn't time at T-y-B, so the journey can be more soothing. This is not always the case as it is just as easy to be really busy on the way down, but there are times when the last down journey of the day sees the crew cashed up before reaching T-y-B!
When the train gets to Minffordd the rubbish is collected again, stocklists are made up, and the water tanks disconnected ready to be refilled and plugged in again on arrival in Port. Then, once the train is back, the crew can stock up, and have ten or twenty minutes collapse in the guard's room before getting two new water tanks on and starting all over again...
At the end of the day the crew cash up how much they've taken, how many staff drinks there have been, and how many guidebooks sold, and prepare the buffet car for the next day. The water tanks are taken off, as are the alcohol trays, and the out-of-date sandwiches (usually consumed by the staff on the platform!). Ideally tables should be cleaned and menued, and all stock should be brought on so that the next crew don't have to worry about it the next day. After setting the alarm, the crew lock the door and head home for a shower and then the bus to the pub...
Two days on the buffet car can be very different from each other
even on the same train times and the same set, but the most variable
factor is which buffet car you work on. There are three real buffet cars
(not including no 12 which is really a shed on wheels!), each with a
distinct character of it's own.
The 'A set' has no 103, a spacey buffet car which is well ventilated and gives a smooth ride, very popular with many people but a little too large for one person to work in alone, it's ideal for three to work in though.
The 'B set' has the barns as it's neighbouring carriages, with their awkward doors, so is often disliked despite the buffet car. Pride of the fleet no 14 (really 102 but it never got called that for some reason) has just been refurbished so the exterior looks quite similar to it's original Lynton and Barnstaple Railway condition. It is a small buffet car though, making work with two people cramped, and there are a number of small eccentricities which people either love or hate. 14 has it's fans and it's enemies, but it has merits and does look better than the others.
The 'C set' has the most disgustingly coloured buffet car, no 114, which nonetheless is quite nice to work in, the proportions are just right for two stewards. It suffers from a very poor ride (as does the whole set) and poor ventilation, but the C set is easy to work on in that there are few obstructions away from the ends of each coach - if you can keep your balance then it's a pleasant set to work on.
So with each buffet car having it's own character, and each day having different people on the trains, there is always something new on the buffet cars, although too much can lead to a dull day seeming even duller! The team spirit is, I find, unbeatable across the railway, with buffet crews working in competition yet together - who can get the most guidebooks was a constant challenge, whereas if an up train desperately needed stock there would be no problems handing it over from the down train which could restock sooner. The way everyone works together and generally 'has a laugh' makes the buffet cars a job which is both enjoyable and challenging at the same time. Although the rewards are few in terms of seeing a physical result of your efforts, the feeling of satisfaction felt when you get a busy train finished, or when you beat a personal best guidebook-selling total, or when the total for the day is higher than any before, those feelings make it all worthwhile.
What a hobby, eh?!
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